In Configuration Manager 2012 you are able to monitor your sites and sites server systems via the Geographical view in the Configuration Manager Administration Console. If you have an enterprise environment with locations all over the world or throughout your country, this feature can be very nice to have an overview of your Configuration Manager 2012 environment in a geographical way.
Archive for June, 2011
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Jun22
JunToday an interesting Community Evaluation Program session held by Chris Adams, Group Program Manager of the Configuration Manager 2012 team, about the package Conversion and Physical to Virtual Migration Toolkit for Configuration Manager 2012. First news was the fact that “CM CEP leader” Jeff Wettlaufer is leaving Microsoft to join RES Software. Good luck Jeff, we will see you arround at RES!
Last couple of days I was building my lab environment for the writing of Mastering Configuration Manager 2012. The lab environment consist of one Central Administration Site, a Primary Site in a new Configuration Manager 2012 infrastructure and a Primary Site and Secondary Site in a Configuration Manager 2007 infrastructure. This way the migration feature can be well tested while writing about that subject.
14
JunDid you ever lost control of your Configuration Manager 2007 environment after you changed the Configuration Manager server from domains. I did, in my test lab. Silly me 
I changed the server from domains, corrected the SQL permissions on the Configuration Manager database but the Site Management in the Configuration Manager Console was empty and stayed empty. Also after performing a site reset. But lazy as I am, I didn’t want to re-add the server to the old domain to give the local administrator access to Configuration Manager, so I had to find an other way to get access again.
Except for the old domain users that had access to the Configuration Manager site, the Network Service and System account had full access to the Configuration Manager site. Just creating users or cloning them wasn’t possible since I did’t have the permissions for it. Finally I found a forum item from someone that suggesting that you should start the Configuration Manager Console with the System Account. Windows 2008 doesn’t allow you to interactively start for instance the Command Prompt with the System Account, so the PSEXEC tool from Sysinternals was a good alternative
With the command below you are able to start the Command Prompt as the System User of the server.
psexec -i -d -s c:windowssystem32cmd.exe
After you start the command prompt, you are able to start the Configuration Manager Console and give yourself access to Configuration Manager 2007 again 
Today another rerun of the CEP Application Management part 2 session was held again. Bryan Keller and Craig Morris both sr. Program Manager of Microsoft went deeper into the Application Management in Configuration Manager 2012. In this blog I will highlight the most important parts of the session. You still can join the program by browsing to the connect website. It is an easy way to “play” with the upcoming new version of Configuration Manager and to connect to your peers.. Next topic is the Application Migration Tool on june 22 of 2011.
03
JunFinally the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 beta1 supporting Configuration Manager 2012 is there! Something I have been waiting serveral months for. The free Microsoft Deployment Toolkit brings more deployment intelligence to System Center Configuration Manager 2012 to fully support Zero Touch OS Deployment, but of course it can also be used stand alone for Lite touch deployments. Read more
03
JunIn SMS 2003 and Configuration Manager 2007, Microsoft supported some kind of support for high availability. You were able to install for instance a Management Point multiple times in a Primary Site but you were needed to configure Network Load Balancing to make the Management Point high available. Will this changed in Configuration Manager 2012?
Peter Daalmans
Technical Consultant and Enterprise Client Management (Configuration Manager/Windows Intune) MVP with Microsoft partner IT-Concern with a primary focus on the System Center Suite and Microsoft Exchange. Writing blogs and sharing his knowlegde on ConfigMgrBlog.com.
Co-author of Mastering System Center 2012 Configuration Manager book from Sybex.
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